


i could wait a thousand hours (stay the same in sun and showers)

by mundanememory



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 08:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20739623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundanememory/pseuds/mundanememory
Summary: Brock and Elias do a thousand things wrong. More, probably. They mess up and they say the wrong thing and they do things at the wrong time. They bend but they never break.Or:Five things that don't go the way they planned, and one thing that happened serendipitously.





	i could wait a thousand hours (stay the same in sun and showers)

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as a prompt fill, for the _a softer world_ prompt ["When I look at you all I can see are the mistakes we're going to make. (the future's so bright)"](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=967), so if you feel like you've read this already, then you probably read the first draft, which is here: [link!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18375980/chapters/45086377)
> 
> This is an edited/revised version; I fixed some things, added some more things, and changed some things to make it all work a little better! I was really quite fond of this one so I wanted it to exist as a standalone and not just in my prompts doc.
> 
> title comes from the song Quiet by Lights! I'm soso fond of them and I hope you all enjoy this! <3

_5_

They find each other the moment the clock ticks to zero. They’re both on the ice, holding desperately onto the one goal lead, but then the buzzer sounds and it’s _real_. They _won_.

“Petey! Petey!” Brock shouts, his voice wobbling, as they skate hard into each other, their bodies slamming together.

“I love you! I love you! We fucking did it!” They’re yelling at each other in celebration, not even anything coherent, just pure excitement and love. The rest of the team flies out onto the ice, yardsale-ing their gear across the surface to form a massive huddle where they scream until they can’t hear themselves think.

Brock feels a lump form in his throat when he sees it brought out to the ice, the commissioner close behind. Bo is crying openly, tugging on the C on his chest like he’s still not sure if any of it is real, and when Brock turns to Elias, he is too. Brock pulls him into his body; Elias presses his face into Brock’s neck and his body shakes with sobs. Brock cries too, because how can he not?

Family streams out onto the ice and the night turns into hugs and tears. It’s so much more intense and feverish than Brock ever imagined. Everything is moving too fast but he clings to every moment, committing it all to memory. He hangs onto Elias, his lifeline, his best friend, and can’t imagine it going any other way.

Elias’ face is streaked with red. He kisses Brock’s temple, holding Brock’s arm, the one that’s been injured this whole time, cradling it so gently like he’s afraid it’ll fall off. Brock looks at him and thinks of all the things they’ve done, everything they’ve gone through, and the only thing he can think is that whatever’s coming next, he wants to do it with him too.

“Hey Pete?” he says, pressing his free hand to the logo on Elias’ chest, voice wrecked.

“Yeah?”

“Will you marry me?”

It’s not the right time to ask, really. They’re surrounded by hundreds of people they barely know and thousands more watching, while they’re looking uglier than they’ve ever looked, scruffy unkempt and sweaty hair covering their faces. They’re injured and dehydrated from crying and are probably going to be drunk for at least a full week starting tonight. But Brock has known he wanted to marry Elias since Elias was nineteen and looked like a strong gust of wind could carry him away.

“I was already planning on spending the rest of my life with you,” Elias says, and it’s meant to be his deadpan humor but his voice and hands are shaking a little. “If you want rings to make it extra official, then let’s do it.”

“Oh, we’re getting rings, baby.”

Brock’s elbow is sprained and there’s some bruising on Elias’ ribs that he’ll still be feeling at training camp in September, but they’ll both start the next season with two new rings. Even though he spends it with his arm in a sling, it’s easily the best summer of Brock’s life.

_4_

They can’t be good every year. No team can be. No couple can be.

Losing puts stress on everyone, everything. It feels like nothing is going right, like every puck is bouncing off the boards wrong, like every attempt at communication is misunderstood. Eventually, the thing they promised would never happen, happens. They take work home.

They’re drinking and fighting, which is becoming depressingly common. Brock, beer in hand, is saying things he doesn’t mean. He’s yelling about a dinner they missed, some double date they had to cancel, but no argument is really about the topic of the argument. It’s really about their attitudes, the way Elias shuts down and doesn’t seem to care enough versus the way Brock can be overbearing and overdo it.

And Brock’s lost enough in life that he knows that _too much_ is what he has to do, and that he can’t understand the way Elias turns cold and distances himself at the drop of a hat. Brock moves too fast with his emotions, turns everything up to 11 and _gives _until his throat is hoarse and his ribs ache, and sometimes he just can’t understand how anyone could go through life protecting their chest the way Elias does.

“You could never understand!” Elias snaps when Brock presses, shouting about Elias’ icy distance and his need to understand analyze every situation.

“I could never understand?!” Brock yells back. “You think I could never fucking understand?! I’ve been doing my damn best for three fucking years to understand you! Your feelings change on a dime! Help a guy out, Jesus!”

“I can’t do everything for you.” Elias’ voice is even. Brock desperately wishes he’d keep shouting, that he’d get mad, that he’d throw things. The silence is infinitely worse.

Elias leaves. The fight is right before the All Star Break, so Elias goes to Dallas and Brock goes to Troy and his wife’s apartment to cry on the couch. He cries until his ribs give out and the muscles underneath wheeze under the weight of his body. _Fuck_. _I’m getting old,_ he thinks as he ices his back, sore from sleeping on the couch. He counts up the things he wishes he could take back and starts again at zero once he loses track.

Elias comes home. Brock is waiting for him, because Troy heaved him into the passenger seat of his car, drove him home, put him on his couch, and sternly told him to _talk to him_. He’s sitting and thinking of all the ways he’ll apologize, but when Elias walks in with his carry-on, the first thing out of his lips is, “I’m so damn sorry.”

Brock bursts into tears. “I’m sorry!” He rushes into Elias’ arms.

They apologize for everything, for projecting their own fears and minimizing each other’s, for allowing the stress in the locker room to affect their home, for their own weaknesses in communication. They end up sitting on the floor of the shower, eating oranges and talking about everything that crosses their minds, until it all washes away and it feels like the beginning again.

_3_

Quinn’s having a great season, and the Pacific has really sucked on defense this year, so he’s a lock for the All Star nod when January rolls around. It’ll be his first appearance, and they all congratulate him when it goes public, mobbing him in the locker room and chatting about it.

Elias and Brock offer whatever advice they can, but the weekend is really something you just have to experience. On the other hand, it’s kind of nice to have a break, and they sit at home wondering what they should do during the time off.

“We could go to the lake?” Elias suggests.

“Eh.” Brock shrugs. “We’ll be there this summer.”

“Sweden?” Elias smiles.

“God, if only.” There’s no hard rule, but Brock’s pretty sure Coach wouldn’t be pleased with anyone going halfway across the globe for their week off.

“Well, we shouldn’t just sit around.”

“What if we just… went to the airport and asked for two tickets to wherever?” It’s always been a bit of a fantasy to Brock, getting on any plane and going anywhere. The location doesn’t matter, anyway. The only thing that really matters is a week with Elias.

“Can you even still do that?” Elias asks skeptically.

“Wanna find out?”

Turns out you can, and Brock and Elias are on a flight to San Francisco by the end of the night. They’ll speak of this trip later amid groans and grimaces, saying they should’ve just stayed home. Not because of San Francisco, but because of the airline that loses their luggage and leaves them stranded in a new city that they only traveled to because of a spontaneous whim.

They cry and yell at people on the phone, but they’ll never see that week’s worth of clothes or their toothbrushes ever again. Their first night, they stumble, disoriented, to a hotel; they beg for a room, flashing IDs and credit cards, and crash in bed as soon as they take off their shoes.

In the morning, Elias is awake first, like always, puttering around the room anxiously. Brock squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that when he opens them, it’ll all have been a terrible dream and the airline didn’t actually lose their wildly expensive clothes and shoes.

“Brock. Babe,” Elias says, exasperated. “I know you’re awake. C’mon.” He comes over to Brock’s side of the bed and shakes him. “We can afford new clothes, Brock.”

Brock groans. “My Birks were broken in perfectly for my feet, though!” he whines, opening his eyes and pouting up at Elias.

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Elias cocks an eyebrow.

Brock mutters a few expletives to himself but rolls out of bed, pulling on the same t-shirt and joggers he wore yesterday. “Y’know, you’re the one who was losing his shit over lost Louis Vuitton sneakers yesterday, so, like. Let me have this.”

They’ve been dating about half a year but they know each other better than anyone. Their first day in San Francisco turns into a shopping haul, cashiers’ eyes turning into dollar signs in the downtown outlets when they ring up Brock and Elias for purchase amounts that are more digits than fit on the register ticker.

“That was therapeutic as fuck,” Brock sighs on their way back to the hotel, his elbows aching from the bags.

“Rich people are crazy,” Elias says.

“Hey. Pot and kettle, or whatever.” Brock elbows him.

“Yeah, I don’t know what that means.” They both laugh, and Brock can’t help but think that a horrible experience can become a great story.

Their second day they go to the fancy Ghirardelli store and eat more chocolate in one day than their nutritionists would normally allow them to eat in a month, and then they take the ferry to Alcatraz, taking photos of each other in the solitary confinement cells and giggling the whole time, not paying attention to the guided self-tour headset. Birds fly around the island, chirping at one another, and Brock sweeps Elias into his arms behind a bush and kisses him when no one is around. They get seafood for dinner and walk around the waterfront hand in hand, watching street performers. It’s sunny and warm, a perfect break from Vancouver winter.

They stay in bed the whole third day. That’s just for them.

On the fourth day, they wake up early and drive five hours north to see the Redwoods. Elias puts on Swedish music in the rental car and Brock tries to sing along, more to see Elias laugh at his terrible pronunciation than anything. He’s trying to learn, but it’s slow going when most of the input he gets is Elias saying pet names and teammates telling him a word means one thing when it actually means another. 

“_När vi_ _åker hem jag vill oftare tala svenska_,” Brock says, vowels slipping over his tongue. He always feels like he's chewing on the language, like the sounds are garbled in his mouth. But Elias is so patient with him; he reaches over and holds Brock's hand on the center console.

“_När vi åker hem _vill _jag oftare tala svenska_,” he gently corrects. Brock sighs. Sometimes he feels like he’ll never figure the word order out. Elias squeezes his hand as if he knows the fears in his heart as intimately as his own.

They walk around the redwood forest and feel immeasurably small. Elias laces their fingers together as they walk in silence. The experience is serene, and in ten years when they laugh about the trip and call it a mistake, they won’t be talking about the fourth day. They won’t bother telling anyone at all about their spontaneous trip north. They won’t post the pictures they ask another tourist to take of them kissing by a redwood, or the ones of squirrels sniffing the food in Elias’ bag while Elias squeezes his eyes shut in laughter.

They’re eating lunch at a campsite, collecting their crumbs on napkins, and the sun filters through the tree tops to warm their bodies. Brock thinks of Swedish lessons, Swedish love songs on the radio and flirty texts poorly translated into Swedish.

_att älska - jag älskar, du älskar, vi älskar_

It seems so simple in another language, doesn’t it? The word is so much more intimate in Brock’s own native language, the word he grew up hearing his mother whisper.

“I love you,” Brock says. He’s never said it before, but he’s known it all along, since Elias was _Elias Pettersson_ and not Petey, since Elias was a weird foreign player with eyes on the ice like no one else and Brock was a roommate with a crush. 

“I love you too,” Elias says simply, easily. He reaches across the table to grab Brock’s smoothie and take a long sip from it. Brock watches dimples sink into his skin when he smiles behind the rim.

_2_

Elias coming to the lake house for a week becomes a tradition over the years. Elias’ rookie year, he visits right after the NHL awards and Brock is terrified to see him because of what happened on clean-out day, but neither of them bring it up and everything is good again. It’s just like it was before clean-out day, before Elias broke Brock’s heart. Brock still loves him so much that sometimes it feels like his broken heart might fall out of his chest right onto the ice, but he deals with it and Elias is still as perfect as he’s always been.

It’s a few years into Elias’ career and a few plus one into Brock’s when their week on the lake becomes a mistake. A great mistake. One of the best mistakes of Brock’s life.

Elias shows up dejected in Minnesota, and Brock doesn’t dare to ask. He’s got food and dogs that love Elias and a lake that seems to sap out any troubles you might have if you just skim over it for an hour or two. He hopes that’s enough to cheer up Elias, but a full day into his visit and he still looks like he’s been stepped on.

They put on baseball after dinner but leave it on mute. Elias curls up with Coolie and Brock watches his face. His lips are curled down, even when Brock says stupid shit about baseball that would always make him laugh before, even when he laughs at a Doritos commercial and his _hoohoohahaha _doesn’t even make him smile.

“Okay. Fuck it,” he says eventually, drawing closer to Elias on the couch. “I’m gonna do the friend thing and ask what’s wrong. Because _this_—” he gestures at Elias “—is not the Petey I know.”

Elias groans. He mutters something in Swedish that Brock knows is his _leave me alone, I’m pretending I don’t speak English right now_ act.

“Nope. Nope! You’re not getting away that easy!” Brock crosses his arms. “You gotta talk to me! It’s bumming me the fuck out.”

“Ugh. It’s nothing. My boyfriend dumped me right before I left.”

His what.

“Your. Um.” Brock’s shirt is sticking to his back with sweat. This is new information that he never had before. Elias is 1) into dudes and 2) currently single and Brock is 1) in love with Elias and 2) has been in love with Elias for the majority of the time he’s known him. Brock was never great at math but there seems to be a really, really appealing solution to this equation.

Years later Elias will tell him it was a horrible mistake, a terrible way to start their relationship, and Brock will agree, but in the moment, Brock is more excited than he’s ever been when Elias bends towards him, snakes his hands around Brock’s neck, and kisses him with Coolie between them.

“That was pretty selfish,” Elias will admit years from now. “I took advantage of your feelings because I was hurt and lonely.”

“The sex was great, though,” Brock will reply, tongue-in-cheek. Elias will hit his arm but smile anyway. It doesn’t bother Brock. Things worked out, and he’s never felt the need to do things the “normal” way.

The sex _is_ great. Brock wakes up the next morning sharing the bed with both Coolie and Elias, with jizz all over his stomach. Elias is already awake, staring at the ceiling.

“Should’ve bought you dinner first,” Elias says, and Brock’s face lights up just at the suggestion.

“You still can,” he replies hopefully.

Elias chuckles. “Alright. Let’s do it, then. A real date.”

Brock picks out the restaurant and Elias pays. Brock smiles so hard the whole time that his cheeks ache afterward. It’s a fancy little place that’s usually quiet, and they sit in the back and talk about summer. Elias’ eyes twinkle in the candlelight.

“I’m sorry about what happened my rookie year,” Elias says. “I didn’t know what to say at the time.”

“That’s okay,” Brock says. He means it, too. “I know I can be a little, uh, forward.”

They laugh it off and hold hands as they walk back to the lake house. They have sex and shower together afterward. “Someday you gotta let me teach you about the joys of eating oranges in the shower,” Brock says sagely as he soaps Elias’ back.

“What the fuck,” Elias says, looking over his shoulder and cocking a brow back at Brock.

“Yeah, I’m serious.” Brock reaches around Elias’ waist and puts his hands on his chest, brushing his fingers along his skin. “Something about eating a messy fruit when you can’t get messy. It’s, like, liberating, or whatever.” He runs his fingers down Elias’ chest.

“Well we have plenty of time.” He spins around and kisses Brock’s forehead. “You can teach me all your weird American ways.”

_1_

Brock falls hard for the rookie. He’s smart and darkly funny, and no one in the league plays like him. He doesn’t want to say that Elias plays like Gretzky… but Elias plays like Gretzky. He’s never played with someone who understood the game as well as Elias while simultaneously being unable to communicate it.

“No!” Elias insists on the bench, pointing at the opposing team’s structure on the iPad. “Here! When your man…” he trails off, face red, frustrated with himself. “He wants you to follow him. You should go inside here and then, when he does _that_, give me the puck.”

His directions are halfway broken and consist of a lot of pointing, but he’s always right. As the season progresses, Brock gets to a point where he can perfectly understand whatever comes out of his mouth and then apply it, usually ending up with a highlight reel goal and mutual thigh slaps on the bench.

Thigh slaps, at least, are the same in every language. Beautiful hockey doesn’t need to be translated.

And so Brock falls in love with him, because how could he not fall in love with a guy like that? Bo knows, and is always pulling back Brock’s sleeve when he’s about to fall deeper or when he’s on his way to hell (or sometimes just the penalty box) on Elias’ behalf.

“You never think before you do anything,” Bo scolds him.

Brock moves too fast and falls too easily but, in his opinion, it’s one of the best things about him. He’s learned by now that nothing in life is guaranteed, and that life is too short and too fucking stupid to not live it like you’re falling out of an airplane.

At the end of the season, after they sit in a line and talk to the media on clean-out day, Brock finds Elias in the back of the lower bowl watching them dismantle the ice and sits beside him. Neither of them say anything for a minute. Brock knows exactly how Elias feels right now, the frustration of doing the best you can and ending up with nothing. In a few months he’s gonna win the Calder trophy (Brock _knows_ he will), but that’s not the trophy you play the game for.

Brock feels like he’s spent his whole life winning trophies he wasn’t playing for. He keeps pushing and running as fast as he can, but all he’s gotten are more potholes. Sometimes it feels like all he needs is one good thing. This season, he feels like he’s found it. Brock bends over and kisses Elias tentatively on the corner of the mouth. He has to at least _try_. He has to know if Elias could possibly feel the same. 

Elias doesn't say anything at all and Brock's heart sinks like a brick. He looks at him like he’s not sure what to say. Brock looks at his feet. Elias presses his fingers to the corner of his mouth where Brock’s lips were, not wiping the wetness away but not looking pleased about it either.

“Sorry,” Brock croaks. He stands.

“You’re gonna get me sick,” Elias says quietly. Brock has a cold.

Brock crumples. “Sorry,” he says again, even weaker this time. He wants to sink into the pothole-ridden earth.

Elias opens his mouth as he walks away, but says nothing, his fingers still there feeling where Brock’s lips were.

_+1_

Brock’s not really watching the draft. He’s scrolling through his phone on the couch, looking at Twitter and watching people react to the first few picks. Vancouver’s picking fifth, so he’s waiting to see what they do, who he’ll get to meet at prospect camp in a few weeks.

McKenzie put Vilardi fifth, and he hasn’t been wrong yet, so Brock’s expecting to hear his name. Twitter people are looking for Glass, too. Brock’s watched them both play a little, not too much, just highlights and maybe a World Juniors game or two. He likes the idea of a center, someone he can play with for years down the line.

It takes Benning _ages _to get the pick in, and then once they get on stage, they call the name of… _Elias Pettersson_, some skinny Swedish kid Brock has barely heard of. McKenzie had him seventh. He shrugs about it, figuring that most of the picks at that point are pretty interchangeable.

He looks like he could be blown away by a strong gust of wind as he climbs up on stage and pulls his jersey on. In his post-draft interview, his accent is strong and he takes his time choosing his words. Brock can’t blame him; he knows exactly what that moment feels like. His cheeks are pink up into the insets of his eyes and the jersey hangs loosely on his thin frame. Brock’s taken by how small he is, how lithe and narrow his body is surrounded by throngs of media. Yet his eyes are cool and unbothered, intelligently observing the reporters swarming around him.

_do you have pettersson’s phone number_, he texts to the Sedins, hoping to introduce himself to the kid. Henrik texts him back quickly with the number, and Brock taps it, pulling up a new conversation thread.

_hey Elias! this is Brock Boeser! welcome to the Canucks!_

_thank you! I’m excited to meet you!_

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> what brock says in swedish is: "When we go home I want to speak Swedish more often", but he messes up the word order a tiny bit. if you are a fluent swedish speaker i really hope i wrote it correctly! please let me know if i messed up!!
> 
> okay i love love goodnight everyone <3


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